Another 'Tool'

Young buffalo are born orange

We headed into Bozeman in search of a spotting scope and a few more supplies.  Figured we may as well give the old knees more time to rest before tackling some other monster hike. 

A few days back when we spotted the wolves we decided that our perfect anniversary gift for ourselves would be a spotting scope.  It seems that most people out here have huge scopes which they set up and watch all the critters from the relative safety of the roadway.   We were surprised at the cost of some of these things.  Don't think we need one of those fancy $4000 scopes so we settled on a modest Leupold.  The magnification is pretty good at 15x to 30x although it's a bit tricky to hold steady at the higher magnification.  We also got a cheap tripod since we didn't bring ours with us...excellent to hang our camp light from too.

First rub head

Flip...rub rear

Heading back into Lamar Valley we pulled the new scope out to look for the wolf pack...none to be seen although a crowd had gathered.  Everyone was looking up the hill at something...or probably nothing.  One lady said that they had 'seen a grizzly' on the hillside near the carcasses.  We saw one lonely pronghorn munching on grasses right where she pointed.  Since it appeared that these people were imagining things we left the scene. 

Male Pronghorn

Once we arrived at the bison herd as luck would have it a small group of pronghorn showed up.  The scope was really nice to use...it definitely makes the animals stand out.  You can even see the long eye lashes of the pronghorn and the individual hairs on the buffalo...so cool.  It was great to have the animals appear so much closer.  Now if only we had a camera lens that would do the same...maybe for next year's adventure.